No Corners

Today Mike and I looked at circles! We have started learning about our letters so why not learn about our shapes as well! We started by practicing how to draw circles. As with the letters, I don't make Mike do this activity. I ask him if he would like to try the activity first.While he was tracing we talked about what a circle was. How many corners does it have? What items in the house are a circle. He practiced his circles and did a short recognition activity and then we went straight into a craft.

There are so many different crafts you can do with circles. You can use old CD's, plates and more. I wanted to do a craft with plates, but unfortunately I didn't have any in stock (which is surprising with the amount of craft supplies I own). So instead I grabbed all of the circle craft items I could find and set them all out. 

I got Mike a piece of paper and let him go wild! I love letting children lead their own crafts. It allows them to use their imagination and creativity! Another important thing to do (in my mind at least) is to do the craft with them. Show them you are interested in what is going on. Show them you can also use your creativity and imagination. Mine and Mike's picture were completely different, and that was great! It showed him it was okay to be different, his picture didn't have to look or be a certain way and he loved it!

Mike really loved using the bingo dabbers and the sparkles!

Mike's finished product! I love how he used most of the materials provided. Very creative!

Here is mine. Not nearly as creative as Mikes!

After we were done our first pictures we were having too much fun to stop! Mike went crazy with the bingo dabbers and I made the house from up! (which has squares in it, but the balloons are circle!)

While Mike and I were letting our creative juices go to work, the twins (who are 1) played with some circle objects. While they were too young to do this crafts, I still wanted to get them involved in learning about circles. 

I wanted to get a variety of different objects for them to explore. The plates and measuring cups were the biggest success and they played with those for a while before getting bored and doing something else (which is fine! I don't want to force them to use anything!). 

Learning about circles was a success! Next time I will make sure I have plates so we can explore a new kind of craft. Hope you enjoyed learning about circles with us!

All About the A's

This week Mike and I were looking at the letter "A". Mike is only 3, but he is interested in the alphabet so I thought now would be a great time to start going through our letters! The first thing I did was make a felt board. Felt boards are great ways for children to interact with stories and songs, so I thought it would be a great idea to use one for letter recognition. I made the board by cutting a cereal box in half and then cutting the sides off.

 I then glued two pieces of black felt on the board. One on each side

Once you have completed your board you can make what ever you want out of felt! I needed to make the letter "A". I simply drew an uppercase and lowercase "A" on a piece of blue felt and cut them out. It's that simply!

After my "A"'s were finished I went online and found pictures of items that began with the letter "A". I wrote the name on the object underneath it and underlined/bolded every time there was an "a". After I had printed and cut out the objects, I glued them each to different color felt (You have to keep it interesting!). I cut the felt and was done!

Mike really enjoyed trying to identify the objects and sticking them on the board. We talked about each object, what it was, and where the "a" sound was present. After that we practiced writing "A"'s. This can be boring for some children so I asked Mike if he wanted to practiced writing "A"'s before bringing the next activity out. I didn't want to force him to do it. I wanted it to be a fun game, NOT a chore. A found some "A" tracing projects on the internet and printed them out. I used the template from http://aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au/printables/cutting-worksheets/cutting-shapes . I then showed Mike how to trace the letters, let him pick a marker and go crazy!

The letters were super messy and didn't always look like "a"'s, but that's fine! It was just for fun and practice!

Once we were done practicing writing our "a"'s we did another "A" recognition activity. I had written a very short story and the day before and printed it out. I read the story and then we had to find all the "A"'s that were in the story. When Mike found an A he would color it with this marker. This helps him recognize "A"'s around other letters and in sentences. Once we found the "A"'s we read the story over and over (just because Mike wanted me too).

Grey was Mike's favorite color today!

After that we made an alligator out of the letter A. All I did was trace and cut out the letter A. We used some jagged scissors to cut teeth, made eyes and a tail! Be creative! Mike had a lot of fun playing with his alligator!

There was a lot of cutting in this activity, so I had to do most of it. Mike enjoyed cutting up smaller pieces of paper with this jagged scissors. Then we played with our creations!

Matthew made a lizard!

I hope you enjoyed our "A" activities! It's important to teach children there letters, but to also make it fun!